There are so many small, picturesque towns in Kentucky that would make great backdrops for films. I sing their praises all the time. And more and more filmmakers are heading to the Bluegrass State for that very reason.

But I'm a proponent of getting out of Hollywood for location shooting ANYWHERE. When I watch movies, authenticity is a major factor in my enjoyment of the film. Also, if you're lucky, you can sneak a peek at actors doing there thing in your own backyard.

Is you live in southern Indiana, Columbus isn't that far a drive, being centrally located almost halfway between Indianapolis and Louisville. And that's where film crews are shooting a new movie based on a true story about the Holocaust. It's called The Ice Cream Man. And the main reason is because of a 123-year-old ice cream parlor--the Zaharakos Ice Cream Parlor and Museum.

I applaud Zaharakos for being exactly what a place like that SHOULD be--a MUSEUM as well as an ice cream parlor. Certainly, if you've been in business for more than 100 years and have maintained that early-19th-century appearance, patrons are going to want more than an awesome chocolate sundae.

The Ice Cream Man director Robert Moniot literally went globetrotting searching for the perfect location for this film; just last year he was in Europe, New York, and Los Angeles. But nothing satisfied him until he did a very specific Google search and Zaharakos was the first item that popped up. Moniot was so enamored of the place that he got a hold of its then-owner Tony Morovec and got him to close the parlor for a week so he could film.

Sadly, Morovec passed away last November.

The actual ice cream man of the title was the Jewish owner of an ice cream parlor in in Amsterdam in the early 1940s. His name was Ernst Cahn, and he was a resistance fighter who led an uprising called The February Strike against the Nazis. Cahn was executed in 1941. He's being played by Noah Emmerich, whose list of credits is enormous--The Americans, The Truman Show, and Super 8 are a fraction of his work.

This isn't the first time Hollywood has come to Columbus. South Korean-American filmmaker Kogonada filmed a movie called...wait for it...Columbus and used a lot of downtown locations in the 18 days it took to shoot the movie.

And now Columbus IN will be in the spotlight once again. By the way, other areas around the city will double for 1940s-era Europe as filming continues.

The release date for The Ice Cream Man has not been published.

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